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Brasyl

3.63 of 5 stars 3.63 · rating details · 1,115 ratings · 143 reviews

Think Bladerunner in the tropics...

Be seduced, amazed, and shocked by one of the world's greatest and strangest nations. Past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, come together in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling.

Three separate stories follow three main characters:

--Edson is a self-ma...more

Hardcover, 355 pages

Published May 1st 2007 by Pyr (first published January 1st 2007)

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Dec 21, 2009 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

The summary on the jacket for this book says, “Think Blade Runner in the tropics.” That’s wrong. It’s not Blade Runner, it’s more like if you took Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Baroque Cycle trilogy and Anathem, the basic plot from Apocalypse Now and some concepts from a crappy Jet Li movie called The One and put them in a blender and mixed them up to come with a unique story, you’d start to have an idea of what this book is like.

There are three parallel stories told in different time frames in...more

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Sep 21, 2010 tim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: aspiring reality police

Edit. Everything is edit, cutting down those endless tapes of footage to meaning… Take a sample here, another there, put them together, smooth over the joins with a little cutaway. A new reality.

A simple enough recipe for achieving life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Throw into the mixture a handful of spices: quantum computers, quantum knives, quantum tattoos. Sprinkle in some Gaian Goddesses and robotic surveillance angels; add a dash of Cosmic Christ. But don’t let anyone know that t...more

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Jun 25, 2008 Jason Pettus rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, weird, sci-fi, hipster, smart-nerdy, personal-favorite

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Regular readers know that I ended up lucking into a cool situation this month; I just happened to be able to get my hands on half of the ten books nominated this year for either the Philip K Dick Award (recognizing the best experimental science-fiction novel of the year) or the Hugo Award (acknowledg...more

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Jun 18, 2007 Jason Wyatt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: sci-fi fans

Extremely difficult intro, largely due to the language barrier (and my own stupidity). The author uses large numbers of Brazilian words that would take whole phrases to describe in English since they don't have direct translations, so I ended up figuring out most of them purely through context. The reason I'm stupid is because there was a brief dictionary in the back of the book that I failed to notice until I finished it.

Besides that, you definitely still need to give this book some time to dra...more

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Jan 02, 2008 Letterswitch rated it 5 of 5 stars

I first heard about “Brasyl” when EW gave it a great review. I don’t usually pick my books from the EW reviews, but occasionally I learn about something that really piques my interest. Of course, being an unknown commodity (to me) and also currently available only in an expensive hard cover, I didn’t impulse buy Brasyl, but rather checked it out from my local library when I was in the mood to try it out—and that happened to be over this Holiday break. Congratulations, Ian McDonald, “Brasyl” is t...more I first heard about “Brasyl” when EW gave it a great review. I don’t usually pick my books from the EW reviews, but occasionally I learn about something that really piques my interest. Of course, being an unknown commodity (to me) and also currently available only in an expensive hard cover, I didn’t impulse buy Brasyl, but rather checked it out from my local library when I was in the mood to try it out—and that happened to be over this Holiday break. Congratulations, Ian McDonald, “Brasyl” is the first book I finished in 2008!

Brasyl is a brilliant SF novel that, unfortunately, ended somewhat unsatisfactorily for me—but the ending did not, by any stretch, kill the read. Each page is filled with interesting ideas, beautiful imagery and wonderful writing that made the experience of reading this novel very pleasurable once I became accustomed to the highly stylized language. This novel has been compared to Neuromancer, which makes sense, though I found myself thinking more often of the percussive rhythms and hipster patter of James Ellroy.

Basically, the plot weaves together three story arcs, each taking place in a different “time period” (we’ll say), all in Brazil. One plot became more interesting than the other two for me—for much of the novel, I found myself very interested in the Jesuit Louis Quinn’s “Heart of Darkness” trek down the 18th century Amazon River, reading faster through the other two plots to get back to the Quinn thread. The other two plots concerned a present day reality TV producer’s crumbling life and a near future street hustler/businessman’s relationship with a mysterious young woman (and quantum computing expert). By the end of the novel, however, I was invested in each plot, and they came together nicely. These plots flow together smoothly, though sometimes McDonald ends a section with a cliffhanger that when we come back to that character I wasn’t sure, exactly, how the cliffhanger was resolved.

The ending was somewhat of a letdown mostly because it felt rather hurried. Most of the book is description-rich, which slows down the pace of reading even when there are chase scenes or fight sequences—McDonald does such a tremendous job of world building that it is only when he pulls back, relying on “bigger picture” ideas rather than on the specific characters and their universe(s) that the energy diminishes. We are given a hint of a vast battle between rebellious truth seekers and an Order sworn to protect the deceitful nature of reality (sort of Matrix-y), but are never satisfactorily ushered into their world. Like I said, my quibbles with the end did not kill the read—a hurried ending is excusable, unless “Brasyl” is simply serving as the setup to an as-of-yet unpublished sequel.

Yes! This review sounds too much like a complaint (maybe because it’s the first work-day of 2008 and as I’m sitting here at my desk typing, I’m staring down the barrel of another soul-crushing year at the library—so I’m a little grumpy). I loved Brasyl! This book is easily one of the better “current” SF books I’ve read (that is, published recently rather than a book already considered a classic). On New Year’s Eve I was stuck in Allegheny General’s ER waiting room for two and a half hours, but I spent the time reading Brasyl and enjoyed every moment of it. McDonald’s writing is very much like poetry. The next book of his I’d like to read is “River of Gods,” an earlier novel set in India.
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Apr 20, 2010 Joyce Lagow rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

Three very different people--Marcelina, a reality TV producer living in Rio de Janeiro in 2006, who is also an accomplished capoeirista; Edson, a self-made talent impresario who still has deep roots in the favelas and crime of the S

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May 17, 2013 Peyton rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book is billed as "Blade Runner in the tropics," but I have to object. Brasyl is no such thing. If any contemporary sci fi is like a rehash of BR, then it's Morgan's latest, "Thirteen." But "Brasyl" is more like "The Matrix" meets Twelvehawk's, "The Traveler," instead.

The premise of the story is rather interesting - Apparently, McDonald read a book for Smart People (Physicists) and got the idea of many different realities playing themselves out concurrently in other time lines and then proc...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Klytia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

2006 Rio de Janeiro: Marcelina è un ambiziosa produttrice di bizzarri reality show in cerca del portiere Barbosa, causa della sconfitta del Brasile nella finale del campionati mondiali del 1950. Troverà invece un'altra se stessa.
2036 Sau Paulo: Edson, giovane imprenditore e giocattolo sessuale di un vecchio professore di fisica, si innamora di una hacker "quantistica". La perderà e la ritroverà
1736 Amazzonia. Quinn, gesuita irlandese, viene inviato in missione nelle profondità della foresta am...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Keith Stevenson rated it 3 of 5 stars

The shoutline on the cover proclaims, ‘F**king brilliant. I’m as jealous as all hell – it’s a beauty’, the quote attributed to SF Master Richard Morgan. And Brasyl is certainly a beauty to look at, wrapped in an iridescent stencil-cut cover with a colourful kaleidoscope of images beneath. But the flashes and explosions don’t end there. From line one we are thrown mercilessly into a heady, crazy country and drenched in its own rich cultural references, lifestyles, mores and indifferences. It’s ha...more The shoutline on the cover proclaims, ‘F**king brilliant. I’m as jealous as all hell – it’s a beauty’, the quote attributed to SF Master Richard Morgan. And Brasyl is certainly a beauty to look at, wrapped in an iridescent stencil-cut cover with a colourful kaleidoscope of images beneath. But the flashes and explosions don’t end there. From line one we are thrown mercilessly into a heady, crazy country and drenched in its own rich cultural references, lifestyles, mores and indifferences. It’s hard to keep up. Brasyl dazzles, Brasyl titillates, Brasyl delights. Or rather, charms you with a succession of gewgaws and an episodic three-strand story that runs from the eighteenth century to the mid twenty-first.

In 1732, Jesuit priest Luis Quinn arrives in the Portuguese colony charged with seeking out a rogue priest who has ‘gone native’ in the best Colonel Kurtz/ Heart of Darkness traditions. In 2006, Marcelina Hoffman is an executive for surely the trashiest reality show TV station ever. And in 2033 Edson, small-time entrepreneur and spandex sex-toy/ superhero, gets involved with some heavy quantum computing dudes and falls for Fia who, due to her facility with the multiverse, appears marked for death. Because you see, all is not well in any of these time-periods. There is a shadowy organisation called the Order who are all about maintaining the status quo and stepping hard on anyone who approaches some understanding of the true nature of reality.

I’m in awe of the sheer volume of research and art that MacDonald has put into creating the world of Brasyl. If I didn’t know he grew up in Northern Ireland, I’d swear he spent his youth playing ‘futebol’ on the dusty streets of Cidade de Luz. The world he portrays is as disorientating as any alien landscape and I found myself initially enchanted by it’s idiosyncrasies, aided – to some extent – by a glossary (maddeningly incomplete) of Brazilian terms in the endmatter. But as the novel progressed, it started to get just a bit too much. I began to suffer, particularly in the second half, ‘shiny thing fatigue’ as each new chapter opened with some startling image, a trick that McDonald uses too often to remain effective. And then I began to look below the sparkle and the breakneck pace and consider the actual plot… ‘F**king brilliant’? Well, it’s a good story, but it didn’t blow my mind. And I did wonder at why the Order would charge a Marcelina doppelganger from another universe with the task of discrediting our universe’s Marcelina – and so tipping her off that some weird shit was going on – when it would have been more effective just to assassinate and replace her right off and infiltrate the Order’s main opposition. The story also suffered from not allowing us to see the Order’s side of things, resulting in their portrayal as one-dimensional black-hats, and I wonder if this was the reason for a jarring, but all too brief, point of view shift into the mind of Yanzon, Order Admonitory, in the last thirty page of the book. Look, if it’s a masterpiece, it’s a flawed one. But having said that, the voice is strong, the writing is accomplished, the story is entertaining – a good one for a rainy weekend when you want to be transported to the sun-drenched beaches of the copa.(less)

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Jul 30, 2010 Ryun rated it 5 of 5 stars

Only a year after Pyr published the epic RIVER OF GODS in the U.S. comes Ian McDonald’s latest novel, BRASYL, and though it’s smaller than its predecessor, it packs no less punch and even more genius. Where other writers spend their whole lives creating fantastic imaginary worlds that have their own languages, calendars and social strata, McDonald has dived headfirst into a culture that’s every bit as fantastic and also awesomely real.

The extensive cultural literacy and knowledge McDonald showc...more

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Jul 24, 2009 Tama Wise rated it 2 of 5 stars

Unlike Ruzkin, I read a copy of Brasyl that had a stylish blue cover, rather than a curiously weird puke green mess. Not sure which represents the novel better …

So, what we have is a novel in three streams; one follows a TV presenter in present day Brazil. Another follows a Jesuit priest in the past. The third follows a guy in future Brazil, in a setting far more cyberpunk.

Well, I wasn’t as enamored by this novel as Ruzkin. I found it a tough read, and not just because there is a lot of Brazilia...more

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Jan 21, 2008 Sandi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, hugo-nominees-2008

Ian McDonald is one of my favorite authors. He probably has more imagination than any other author out there. He creates futures that are totally bizarre and makes them completely believable. In my opinion, "Brasyl" is one of his best novels. It's been nominated for the Hugo award and deserves to win.

"Brasyl" explores the concept of multiple universes in a whole new way. The end was a total surprise. I will definitely be re-reading this book.

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Jun 12, 2008 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, read-2008, science-fiction

Somewhat disappointing. Ian McDonald certainly has a distinctive style. It worked for me in River of Gods...but in Brasyl I was mostly annoyed. Maybe reading this right after River of Gods was not a good thing to do since they are so similar in style and both heavily involve quantum mechanics. I was a little sick of the parallel universe/multiverse stuff. However, it did end strong so I would recommend it...but it did not live up to the hype.

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Oct 21, 2012 Sachahaworth rated it 4 of 5 stars

I stumbled upon Ian McDonald accidentally with "Scissors Cut Paper, Wrap Stone" and fell in love with his cyberpunk stories.

Brasyl is set in Rio De Janerio and the story spans three time lines: a reality TV producer hungry for her next break learns of a doppleganger, a thief hires a renegade quantum computer to crack an ARFID chip on a stolen handbag and a Jesuit priest sets out into the rainforest to account for his predecessors. It transpires that there is more to the rengeade quantum compute...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Jose Solis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Después de la fantástica River of Gods, esta novela se lee como una obra menor del autor, pero solo en la comparación, porque por sí misma tiene bastantes cosas atractivas: una trama compleja con varias historias paralelas, personajes muy creíbles y sobre todo, la ambientación que es de primera. Se nota que el señor McDonald, como es comstumbre en él, investigó a fondo la cultura brasileña para salpicar el relato con infinidad de detalles, lugares, etc que hacen que uno se sumerja por completo e...more

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Nov 14, 2012 Ana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Lido no âmbito do Clube de Leitura do Fantástico da Bertrand, era o livro a ler para o mês de Novembro.

"Brasyl" de Ian McDonald torna-se extenso demais. Tem descrições e pormenores interessantes e é bastante imaginativo. A parte final das três histórias daria um bom filme. Assim como seria interessante ver na tela os cenários da parte do Edson e como aquele futuro seria concebido, assim como a batalha na parte de Quinn ou até a luta final de Marcelina.
Nota ainda da a mistura de inspirações que M...more Lido no âmbito do Clube de Leitura do Fantástico da Bertrand, era o livro a ler para o mês de Novembro.

"Brasyl" de Ian McDonald torna-se extenso demais. Tem descrições e pormenores interessantes e é bastante imaginativo. A parte final das três histórias daria um bom filme. Assim como seria interessante ver na tela os cenários da parte do Edson e como aquele futuro seria concebido, assim como a batalha na parte de Quinn ou até a luta final de Marcelina.
Nota ainda da a mistura de inspirações que McDonald teve de outras obras, de "Matrix", passando por "Heart of Darkness" e a trilogia de Philip Pullman "His Drak Materials".

Pense em Blade Runner nos trópicos ...
Ser seduzido, maravilhado, e chocado com uma das maiores e mais estranhas nações do mundo. O Brasil no passado, presente e futuro, com toda a sua cor, paixão e realidades mutáveis, mistura-se num romance que é parte ficção científica, parte história, parte mistério, e completamente cativante.
Três histórias separadas seguem as três personagens principais:
Edson é um talentoso empresário por esforço próprio, um passo à frente, nas favelas num futuro próximo numa cidade (São Paulo) de riquezas surpreendentes e pobreza. Um encontro casual leva Edson para perigoso mundo da computação quântica ilegal, mas para onde poderá escapar, quando se encontra uma sociedade de vigilância total onde cada movimento, rosto e dinheiro são constantemente monitorizados?
Marcelina é uma ambiciosa produtora da Rio TV que procura um grande sucesso para um reality show para fazer nome. Quando a sua ideia escaldante a leva à procura de um guarda-redes caído em desgraça no Campeonato do Mundo de Futebol, envolve-se numa conspiração antiga que ameaça não só a vida, mas também a sua alma.
O padre Luis é um missionário jesuíta enviado para o turbilhão do século dezoito no Brasil para localizar e punir um padre desonesto que se desvia para além dos limites de sua fé e estabelece um vasto império no sertão. Na companhia de um geógrafo francês e espião, o que ele encontra nos remansos do Amazonas coloca à prova tanto a sua fé como a natureza da própria realidade ao ponto de ruptura.
Três personagens, três histórias, três países (Brasyl), todos ligados entre si através do tempo, espaço e realidade numa história extremamente ambiciosa, que vai desafiar a sua maneira de pensar sobre tudo.(less)

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Nov 18, 2012 Artur Coelho rated it 3 of 5 stars

Três narrativas em três realidades de um Brasil alternativo colidem numa revisitação de ideias sobre a virtualização do universo. Num presente decalcado dos piores pesadelos mediáticos uma hiperactiva agente de um canal televisivo com queda para o ritualismo da capoeira dá tudo por tudo para conseguir audiências. Ao investigar um personagem de um momento-pivot da história recente do país acaba envolvida num conflito que ultrapassa as fronteiras do que julga ser a realidade.

Num passado ucrónico...more Três narrativas em três realidades de um Brasil alternativo colidem numa revisitação de ideias sobre a virtualização do universo. Num presente decalcado dos piores pesadelos mediáticos uma hiperactiva agente de um canal televisivo com queda para o ritualismo da capoeira dá tudo por tudo para conseguir audiências. Ao investigar um personagem de um momento-pivot da história recente do país acaba envolvida num conflito que ultrapassa as fronteiras do que julga ser a realidade.

Num passado ucrónico um padre jesuíta irlandês chega ao Brasil setecentista para punir um membro transviado da ordem, que está a cinzelar um pequeno império de fé, ferro e fogo nas entranhas da Amazónia. Acompanhado por um cientista francês desce o rio rumo à escuridão e a uma colisão com um padre louco que utiliza os membros de uma tribo isolada para perscrutar as maquinarias do universo. Vítima sacrifical, o jesuíta sobrevive e organiza uma comunidade utópica na floresta. A capacidade de visitar infinitas instâncias de realidades alternativas transforma-o num deambulante entre realidades paralelas.

Num futuro próximo um jovem desenrascado tenta singrar no turbilhão da favela. Neste futuro Brasil todos os objectos têm identificadores rfid, as queixas policiais são entregues a empresas que apresentam propostas de baixo custo em tempo real e a cidade é vigiada constantemente por uma rede de aeronaves robóticas. Neste caldeirão cultural o jovem apaixona-se por uma cientista de computação quântica especializada em crackar códigos de identificação com algoritmos complexos perscrutando realidades paralelas. Ela morre, e dá-se a aparição de uma sósia, contraparte fugida de uma outra realidade que revela a razão por detrás das histórias paralelas e uma guerra entre facções que pretendem manter oculto o segredo da multiplicidade de realidades.

Uma fascinação com a visão de um Brasil misto de turbilhão de cultura exótica e favela chic coexiste com uma intrigante visão de uma modernidade futura hiper-liberal e um olhar crítico sobre o colonialismo através das injustiças ficcionadas no passado que mimetizam o espírito de No Coração das Trevas de Conrad. O cerne do livro, o conceito de realidades alternativas, é fortemente ambíguo. Há uma indecisão, talvez deliberada, sobre o conceito. Realidades que se dividem a nível quântico, múltiplas bifurcações das teias das linhas de tempo, experiência shamânica acessível graças às toxinas de uma espécie de sapos tropicais, ou simulações indistinguíveis do real a correr no computador quântico nos tempos finais de um universo colapsado pela entropia, vivendo infinidades de tempo no horizonte de acontecimentos de uma singularidade final. Três possibilidades que Ian McDonald equilibra num livro que apesar dos conceitos que despertam a imaginação e da solidez da tríade narrativa se arrasta e perde-se no deslumbramento com uma certa ideia de exotismo terceiro-mundista.
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Apr 14, 2009 Jamie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, mystery-thriller

A sci-fi book told from three different characters' perspectives, one in modern day Brazil, one thirty years in the future, and one from the 1700's. The back cover hook told me they were all connected somehow. This was enough to get me interested, combined with the fact that I lived in Brazil for two years. Good thing I did.

I don't know how this book would be comprehensible to someone who hasn't lived in Brazil. No, not comprehensible, it's just that the author throws so much brazilian verbiage...more

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Apr 09, 2012 Jani rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What can I say, this was even better than River Gods; gripping, exciting, surprising and eventful. I had no idea how the three stories lines were going to meet at the beginning, I had tons of quesses on the way, but I only got right some of the details. Ian McDonald doesn't list the soundtracks for writing his novels at the end of them for nothing; the story rolls on with a rhythm and certain corporeal poetry. His skill in keeping the suspense (that I really don't honestly no that much about, I...more

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Oct 07, 2009 Chloe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian-fiction, library_book, not-owned, scifi-fantasy, i_am_in_love

As constant (some may say obsessive) readers, we have all come to know our individual tastes rather well. We know what books will hit our literary G spots and which will leave us feeling cold and dirty, like the regretful afterglow of a one night stand. We learn to savor those reads that are a “sure thing,” that guaranty a night of debauched pleasure. This is how it was when I first heard of the publishing of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl. There is no doubt that I am a scifi junkie. Few books scratch my...more As constant (some may say obsessive) readers, we have all come to know our individual tastes rather well. We know what books will hit our literary G spots and which will leave us feeling cold and dirty, like the regretful afterglow of a one night stand. We learn to savor those reads that are a “sure thing,” that guaranty a night of debauched pleasure. This is how it was when I first heard of the publishing of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl. There is no doubt that I am a scifi junkie. Few books scratch my itch for excitement and intelligent reflection like the worlds of the future, especially those books set in the near future which concern themselves with the cultural and social ramifications of our constant technological advancements- those books that help us to make sense of the present by extrapolating current trends into a fantastic and extreme future. Of course, what is to happen once you’ve read everything that the godfathers of cyberpunk (William Gibson and Bruce Sterling) and the scribes that they have inspired (Neal Stephenson, Richard K. Morgan, and Pat Cadigan) have written?

If you’re anything like me, you scan the newly released books like a hawk in search of new authors breaking ground in a subgenre that many claim is outdated. This is how I first came across Ian McDonald’s River of Gods, a rollicking cyberpunk tale set in India as it celebrated its centennial anniversary as a nation. A week or so later, having summarily disposed of that magnificent work, I heard of his follow-up, Brasyl, set among the favelas and shanties of Rio de Janeiro. Still, knowing how necessary it is to hoard a sure thing like this, I kept putting off actually reading it until I could stand it no longer and my imagination fairly cried out for a book like this one. They say that pleasure delayed is pleasure heightened and, if this book was any indication, this is an axiom well worth repeating.

Set in three very different eras, Brasyl forms a wondrous triptych of vibrant detail and a glimpse into the Brazil that was, is, and could be. In the past we are introduced to Father Louis Quinn, a Jesuit priest sent up the Rio Negro to investigate whether one of his brethren has given in to Kurtz-ian impulses. The Rio of 2006 gives us a glimpse into the life of Marcelina Hoffmann, a producer of reality shows that even Fox would hesitate to air and erstwhile capoeira enthusiast whose search for a missing Soccer legend turns up a doppelganger of the most nefarious sort. Most exciting of all, though, is the Rio of 2032, as introduced through up-and-coming favela talent manager Edson, who has the poor luck to fall in love with a black market quantum computing specialist. McDonald weaves their stories together with careful precision, never revealing too much but just enough to keep the reader frantically turning pages.

While the plot is exciting and the descriptions of quantum realities are probably the most readily accessible that this lay mind has ever read, what makes this book so special is its setting and McDonald’s skill at evoking crystal clear images from only a few words. More than any of the protagonists, it is Rio who is the star of this book. McDonald describes everything perfectly: the capoeiristas practicing in the shadow of the Jesus on the mountain, the walls built up to keep the residents of the favelas from spreading their violence into Rio-proper, the early morning beaches populated only by saggy-skinned fishermen and sun-worshipping cariocas, the fevered excitement and communal pride that grips the nation during the World Cup, even the giant trash mountains of ewaste (discarded computer equipment, etc.) that is continuously picked over by families of scavengers in search of circuit boards to be melted down for their trace amounts of copper and gold. Early in the book Edson attends a baile (think dance party) and the way that McDonald describes the art of turntablism- the dropping in of a rhumba rhythm, how the addition of a guitar squeal at the right minute can amp the audience to ever-higher peaks of joy- is more spot on than any other description of DJing I’ve ever come across in fiction.

So I loved this book. It hit every tried and true trope of cyberpunk without ever feeling derivative or dull and, most of all, it brought to life a region of the world that I have been endlessly fascinated with in recent years. Music lovers who have been enjoying the sounds of baile funk that have been trickling up from our Southern neighbors in the form of groups like Bonde do Role and CSS or the mixes from Diplo will thrill to the playlist of great and hard to find music that McDonald appended to the end of the book. Also, I loved McDonald's adoption of old-school newsgroup terminology to refer to modern extended circles of friends and acquaintances as alt-dot-families. While a lot of the science fiction that I’ve attempted of late has left me feeling a little put out, Brasyl has exceeded even my wildest hopes and crafted a story so eminently enjoyable that I’m already thinking of reading it again.
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Jan 23, 2011 Ian James rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

This book leant heavily on Brazilian culture and vocabulary in an attempt to make it more interesting. The science was not at all convincing to me: the description of being able to see into parallel worlds was not at all believable, and it made no sense that the poison from a frog conferred the ability to do so in humans, just because that frog's retina is supposedly capable of detecting a single quantum of light (and is thus able to see into the quantum world). Also, just because you can see bi...more

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Mar 09, 2009 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature-disguised-as-science-fic

Brazyl is a three part narrative drawn together through locale and quantum physics. The title is a good clue as none of them are actually Brazil and vary in interesting ways. They are a contemporary media satire worth of anyone of the post-Delillo generation that becomes a tale of a sinister doppelganger, a near future Gibson style cyber punk, and my favorite an alternative history of colonial Brazil that evokes Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Pynchon’s Mason Dixon, and Llosa’s War at the End of the...more

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Apr 10, 2008 Kris rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was on lots of best-of scifi lists last year, but I thought it started slow and never really recovered. Also, I have tried it in many forms, but I just can't really get into cyberpunk (Neal Stephenson excepted).

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Jan 22, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Blade-runner meets Mad-Men meets Sliders, with a dash of World Cup fever and a detour into Heart of Darkness...Cyberpunk with a healthy dose of quantum physics and favela flair. One has to give McDonald credit for genre-mashing as well as temporal cross-cutting: three engaging characters, each of whose Brazil (1700s, 2000s, and 2050s) is well-crafted and convincing. Despite an unfortunate and increasing descent into silliness towards the end when the "metaplot" gets flushed out (at which point i...more

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Aug 28, 2010 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: random-comments-review, favorites

All in all I got the impression Brasyl is very carefully written and well researched. It displays the poetic quality of McDonald’s writing very well. Like Cyberabad Days it is a challenging read, one I didn’t truly appreciate until what I had just read, had time to sink in. I think McDonald managed to earn himself a place on the list of my favourite authors with these two books. The settings he chooses, the quality of the writing and the way seems to be able to completely immerse himself in the...more

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Sep 07, 2011 Guilherme rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2010

Ficção cientifica a puxar para o cyberpunk com o Brasil presente, passado e futuro numa onda de mecânica quântica e universos paralelos.

O facto de ter 3 narrativas, cada uma com uma personagem principal diferente e passada num período temporal também diferente torna o livro algo partido/fracturado.

Apesar de existirem alguns pontos de contacto entres as várias narrativas, não chega para formar um todo realmente consistente.

Calculo que tenha alguns temas e conceitos específicos da cultura brasilei...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, fiction, favourites

Fully enjoyed this book, deliciously colourful and trashy. Initially I certainly preferred the Heart of Darkness homage set in the 18th century, but as things progressed I enjoyed the other storylines more and that one a little less.

McDonald's got a great style for this kind of book, although where he let the punctuation give way it did make me feel a bit nauseous. Thoroughly modern stuff, internal monologues chopped and sprayed through paragraphs. At any rate, his language remained good fun thr...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Mleugene rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you were a fan of the "Sliders" TV show you will have some understanding of the basic premise of this book. If you then throw in just a bit of the "Matrix" in terms of good guys and bad guys fighting each other for the future of the universe, you've got it. The setting, Brazil, specifically Rio, with its wealth of culture makes for a nice backdrop for a story that manages to have that gritty, cyberpunk edge to though it is only really partially set in the near future. It may be me, but it see...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Alexandra Rolo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Li este livro pois será o próximo a ser discutido no Clube de Leitura Bertrand de Lisboa e não gosto de ir sem ter as coisas lidas se não depois não percebo nada do que se está a falar.
É um livro interessante que se passa em três linhas temporais: século XVIII, 2006 e 2032, tendo como centro o Brasil.
Vamos acompanhando as várias personagens, como vão evoluindo e a forma como as diferentes linhas temporais acabam por se completar umas às outras.
Teorias de universos e multiversos, realidades paral...more

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May 13, 2009 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf

Writers, like other artists, do not create in a vacuum. Rather, creation often comes by accretion, building on ideas of others to strike out in new or different directions. Ian McDonald's Brasyl is a marvelous example of such synthesis.[return][return]Each chapter contains three storylines set in past, present and future Brazils. Not only does McDonald give us a flavor for life in each period, he links them in unexpected and striking ways. Here, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness meets The Matri...more

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About Ian McDonald

Ian Neil McDonald (1960-) is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies.

McDonald was born in 1960, in Manchester, to a Scottish father and Irish mother, but moved to Belfast when he was five, and has lived there ever since. He therefore lived throu...more

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Quotes from Brasyl

“Fake it may be, lies and deceptions, but this is the world in which we find ourselves, and here we must make our little lives.” — 9 people liked it

“Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth.

Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie.

Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. But the joy began in the lobby with Luesa the receptionist in her high-collared white dress saying “Good afternoon, Senhora Hoffman,” and the smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and brightness of the frosted glass panels and the bare wood floor and the cream-on-white cotton wall hangings, the New Age music that she scorned anywhere else (Tropicalismo hippy-shit) but here told her, “you’re wonderful, you’re special, you’re robed in light, the universe loves you, all you have to do is reach out your hand and take anything you desire.”

Eyes closed, lying flat on the reclining chair, she felt her work-weary crow’s-feet smoothed away, the young, energizing tautness of her skin. Two years before she had been to New York on the Real Sex in the City production and had been struck by how the ianqui women styled themselves out of personal empowerment and not, as a carioca would have done, because it was her duty before a scrutinizing, judgmental city. An alien creed: thousand-dollar shoes but no pedicure. But she had brought back one mantra among her shopping bags, an enlightenment she had stolen from a Jennifer Aniston cosmetics ad. She whispered it to herself now, in the warm, jasmine-and vetiver-scented sanctuary as the botulin toxins diffused through her skin.

Because I’m worth it.” — 1 person liked it

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